Production is set to start with diesel and jet fuel while petrol refining is scheduled to commence on November 30.
The long-awaited 650,00 barrels per day Dangote refinery would receive its first cargo of crude in the next two weeks and would begin producing up to 370,000 bpd of diesel and jet fuel from October.
In an interview with S&P Global Commodity Insights, the company’s Group Executive Director, Devakumar Edwin, who is overseeing the $19.5 billion facility, outlined a detailed production timeline, shed light on crude and product flows and laid out a litany of complications and delays to the project since it was first mooted in 2013.
Dangote aims to make Nigeria, Africa’s biggest producer which imports all its refined products self-sufficient in fuels and leave plenty more for export.
Edwin, said the refinery, which was officially inaugurated by former President, Muhammadu Buhari in May, would launch in phases, beginning with 350,000-370,000 bpd of diesel and jet fuel by October, when the crude distillation unit, sulphur block and hydrogen plant should be online.
Then on November 30, he said the refinery would start the phased ramp-up to 650,000 bpd, around half of its petrol production, the key area of Nigerian fuel demand.